The fact that you talk about taking on the “role” of jester indicates to me that jestering is something you do when you deem it necessary, as one mode of ministry. That’s a lot different than what I was remembering, which is guys (and to a lesser extent, gals) who adamantly refuse to ever relinquish the jester and/or rebel outsider thing.

I’m sort of amazed how the Jack conversation has taken off.

I step out of the blogisphere for a week (due to circumstances beyond my control) and upon my return I find a jeremiad against ministers with jester personaes. My first reaction, understandably I think, is one of defensiveness. After setting that aside and reading through your post for a fourth time, I discover something rather distasteful.

I can’t disagree with anything you wrote. (Well, most of it anyway).

The words you use to describe the “jesters you have known” are accurate for some jokers and clowns I have known as well– and disliked as well. Since you and I have never met (that I know of) and have had only one or two brief blog exchanges, I’m going to take the safe route of assuming you aren’t talking about me at all.

That being said, I feel a need to still defend the sacred fool, the role of Minister Jester. I take my ministry and my Jestering very seriously. I mock not for mocking’s sake or out of passive agressivenes. When I am in the role of Jester, I am looking for the best way to get across a message that I think some people don’t want to hear. For me, humor is the best way to convey that message in a medium others can accept and understand. Does it work? Sometimes. Sometimes not. Such is this case with all forms of ministry, though.

Jestering is not about being always funny, nor is it about being always joyful. It isn’t about attacking tradition (thought that has its place sometimes). And it certainly isn’t about sitting on the sidelines disengaged. True jesting is about pointing out our inconsistencies, our foibles, and our hubris– and helping us to laugh at them. That laughter is both a highlight of such behaviors and an invitation to choose different behaviors.

It isn’t easy work. People don’t like to see themselves as fools. They certainly don’t like to change. Often the message is heard and unheeded and the messenger is punished for their audacity and “presumption”.

So has it always been in ministry.
And Jestering.

Peace.

(Note to self: Write, Edit, then Post. No sense looking like a fool for poor word choice and poor spelling.)

Kinda like knowing when God is laughing. You only know when you are laughing with Him. And its usually laughing at yourself. When you can laugh with God at yourself, you know you’ve grown.

As for seriousness… there are enough educated charlatans in the institutional Church to rival any mail-order ministers.

I guess it comes down to guts. The cacophony of theology is so dense, it takes a bull to charge through its barbed-wire, while everyone screams that the bull is actually in a china shop.

You go with what God has Given you, Jack. My prayers are with you, as the institution writhes in agony over your sexuality.

Right now I am having a ball with the Emergent Church sorts. It appears that for all their yearning to modernize a post-modern Church, they still cannot fathom who they are outside of their complex theology. And this despite having the best intellectual tools available that civilization has ever provided.

Just remember, there is only one entity that God calls a fool. It is a sin to call any of His Children that. But then I’m paraphrasing that other uneducated rebel, aren’t I?

Dance then, wherever you may be… and damn the mind when it kills the heart.

Blessings,
Sun Warrior

Creating ideas and transmitting ideas to the masses are two different jobs.

CC

I think you would find very few of them who would try to compare their qualifications as on par with collegically trained ministers.

I kind of view it as a professional teacher, and the dedicated and intelligent parent who home-schools. One is essential in an institution beacuse of their training and specialities the other, while not specifically trained, can use their own knowledge and life experience to touch lives in an equally meaningful way.

I guess I sould point out that I am also a ULC minister, although i do not go by the adjective Reverend and have not yet sought a ministerial license.

It’s not that I wish to turn serious things into jokes, so much as I take my jokes very seriously.

“Women in religious leadership can hardly afford to wear the motley cap when we’ve struggled for thousands of years against sexism to earn our authority in the first place.”

Well, on the one hand, I’m gay, so it’s not like mainstream hierarchies would be lining up to hand me authority if I sought it. But the point of the “Holy Fool” I represent is that I do not seek such authority in the first place. Authority is just not what I’m in this gig for. People will listen to me when they think I’m right, and correct me when they think I’m wrong, and I won’t have it any other way.

The “Lord of the Dance” archetype you spoke of is what I’m going for: laughter and joy amidst chaos and condemnation. I’m sure I slip into a bit of “you just can’t take a joke” and “I’m just the comedian” from time to time, but nobody’s perfect.

Anyway, the real lessons to be learned from Holy Fools come not from what they say, but rather from how we react. When you stare into a fountain of nonsense and confusion, do you judge or accept? Despair or celebrate? Love or hate? I’ve always figured, if we can’t abide a Holy Fool, then how are we to abide the far more wretched sinners that we as Christians are called to love and embrace? Holy Fools are like training wheels for compassion; our ability to take a joke is the seed of our ability to forgive the world.

As I hope I’ve shown in this post, I’ll get gravely serious with whomever wants to get gravely serious. But personally, it’s those times of gravest darkness when I most need and seek the light-hearted.